An Amnesty International investigation that has put the spotlight on the Sudan government’s possible use of chemical weapons against civilians in the western region of Darfur, may not be the only instance of the security forces allegedly launching chemical attacks.

Witnesses in South Kordofan, another region resisting government control, also report seeing civilians with symptoms suggesting chemical weapons’ exposure, from as recently as April.

The Amnesty report, released in late September, claimed government aircraft conducted at least 30 chemical attacks in the remote Jebel Marra region of Darfur this year. Based on testimony from caregivers and survivors, it said that as many as 250 people may have been killed.

Two separate, independent chemical weapons experts concluded that the injuries and reported symptoms suggested a chemical attack from blister agents such as sulfur mustard, lewisite or nitrogen mustard gases.

Symptoms reported by 56 witnesses included bloody vomiting and diarrhoea; skin blisters and rashes which hardened; as well as eye and respiratory problems.

The government has denied the allegations.

Not just Darfur

Further south, in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan, aid workers and local officials have also reported suspected chemical weapons use by the government. If accurate, the reports suggest a more deliberate and wide-ranging campaign by Khartoum against its restive regions.

Without soil samples, it’s impossible to verify the allegations, but medical officials told IRIN they have seen symptoms consistent with chemical weapons exposure stretching back over at least four years of conflict.

Tom Catena, the only surgeon at the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel, said the first incident he observed of a possible chemical attack was in April 2012, during fighting in Talodi town.

Eighteen victims of a government air raid were taken to the hospital, where they reported seeing grey smoke from the bombing turning white.

“The people who were exposed to the smoke said they became paralyzed, had blurred vision, vomiting and some with diarrhoea,” the renowned surgeon said. “Several said they couldn’t move their bodies for several hours, but eventually regained full function.”

Nuba children shelter in a foxhole at the sound of an approaching bomber

The symptoms could be the result of exposure to organophosphates such as insecticides and herbicides, or nerve agents, he said.

The second incident took place around late March to early April this year in the embattled town of Al Azraq, where Catena said similar symptoms were identified.

Ali Abdelrahman, director of the Nuba Mountains Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Organization (NRRDO) – a community-based support group – said his NGO has also come across cases of suspected chemical attacks on civilians in the Nuba Mountains. “But the problem is, we do not have the technical devices required to confirm these cases,” he said.

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières reported the suspected use of chemical weapons as far back as 1999 in air attacks on Equatoria province, in what is now South Sudan.

Evidence problem

Repeated calls by IRIN to the Sudan Armed Forces for comment went unanswered. But a foreign ministry official, Abdel-Ghani Al-Na’im, had earlier dismissed the Amnesty report as “mere tendentious claims”.

Reaching a firm conclusion on the government’s alleged use of chemical weapons remains difficult. Sudan has effectively blocked access by international organisations and the media to the conflict areas in both Darfur and the Nuba Mountains.

Amnesty International said it was unable to collect soil and blood samples, and instead had to rely on interviews, satellite imagery and analysis of photographs of injuries.

The hybrid UN and African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) has also been unable to corroborate Amnesty’s findings because its movements are limited by the authorities.

“Over the past year, UNAMID has consistently requested and been denied full and unhindered access to conflict areas in Jebel Marra by the government of Sudan,” a UN peacekeeping official told IRIN.

Access

“The government is obliged to provide UNAMID with full and unhindered freedom of movement throughout Darfur under the terms of its Status-of-Forces Agreement with the United Nations … We continue to urge it to do so,” the official added.

“The government of Sudan makes it nearly impossible for journalists to report from Darfur,” said award-winning photojournalist Adriane Ohanesian, one of the few foreign journalists to gain access to Jebel Marra last year. “Obtaining any information from these regions in Darfur is an endless struggle.”

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international anti-chemical weapons body, said more evidence was needed before it could “draw any conclusions” based on the Amnesty investigation.

In the meantime, the human rights group is presenting its Darfur report to the UN Security Council. According to Amnesty’s Sudan researcher, Ahmed El-Zubeir, the report refutes the government’s claim the situation in Darfur is stable.

The area of the Jebel Marra where the chemical weapons were allegedly used is controlled by rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur, who is not part of a shaky peace process.

The related conflicts in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile are being fought by rebels against an authoritarian government in Khartoum they regard as bent on exploiting and marginalising the country’s ethnic minorities.

The people of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan State are accustomed to hardship. Receiving little outside aid, they have managed to farm and survive despite the challenges of a protracted civil war with the Sudanese government. But that could be about to change.

Local residents say poor harvests and the Sudanese government’s targeting of key farming areas will mean severe hunger later this year and potential starvation next.

For more than five years, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) and the Sudanese army and associated militia have fought each other to a standstill in the border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Neither side has attained a significant military advantage and both have been accused of abuses against civilians, although President Omar al-Bashir's forces are charged with the lion's share.

In a June interview with state-run Radio Omdurman, the governor of South Kordofan State (who is loyal to President Omar al-Bashir), Major General Issa Adam Abakar, disputed the notion of a military deadlock and said the Sudanese army was closing in on victory.

The fighting in South Kordofan generally takes place from November to June, before the region’s rainy season muddies all access points to the rebel strongholds in the Nuba Mountains, making many roads impassable.

This year marked one of the government’s largest campaigns yet. Al-Bashir's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) attacked the Nuba Mountains in late March with seven offensives. The SPLA-N repelled all of these attacks except in two areas – but the damage to farmlands and markets has brought dire consequences for civilians.

War of attrition

Attacks by al-Bashir’s forces and his warplanes have routinely killed civilians for years. What has changed now is that they are accused of waging a systematic war of attrition designed to squeeze civilians out of rebel-held areas by destroying farmland and markets, and blocking planting by civilians during the rainy season.

“This year, the Sudan government has used a new tactic of war – explicitly targeting food supplies,” said Osman Tola, executive director of the rebel agriculture ministry. “President Omar al-Bashir has tried through land offensives that have so far failed, so he is [now] trying to get people to move to [government] areas of control.”

According to the head of one aid organisation (who wished to remain anonymous), one of only a handful operating in the Nuba Mountains, Sudanese forces spent an entire week in late March-early April destroying all the farmland and water points in an area called Karkaria, which acts as a fertile greenbelt and water-flow area for the region.

“It’s done purposely,” said Ali Abdelrahman, director of the Nuba Mountains Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Organisation (NRRDO), a community-based support group. “To set fire to people’s homes, to drive away livestock – purposely to get them hungry. Once you get into that situation, you [either] die or join government-controlled territories whereby youth are recruited against their own people.”

Repeated calls to a Sudanese army spokesman for comment on the questionable tactics being used in its campaign went unanswered.

On 18 June, al-Bashir declared a four-month unilateral ceasefire between the government and rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states; a largely moot gesture since the ceasefire aligns with the rainy season, when fighting naturally subsides. The declaration came too late in the planting season for staple crops, leaving a devastating food gap for next year.

Normally, government troops retreat before the rainy season begins in earnest, fearing their supply lines and exit points will be cut off. But this year, their forces appear set to remain in key positions, displacing the residents indefinitely and preventing planting.

This is because while the ceasefire curbed fighting, it also allowed SAF garrisons to entrench themselves in two of the Nuba Mountains’ most productive agricultural areas: Al Azarak in Heiban County and Mardes in Delami County. The rebels had surrounded the two garrisons, effectively blocking most supply lines to the two SAF enclaves ahead of the ceasefire, according to rebel spokesman Arnu Ngutulu and eyewitnesses. The ceasefire allowed SAF breathing room from these offences, Ngutulu told IRIN.

Civilians displaced from Azarak have lost their homes, and now they fear starvation

The Sudan army’s ongoing presence in Al Azarak and Mardes blocks people from farming these vital areas. People who normally walk for hours from outside villages to farm the rich soil in Mardes, for instance, are now displaced primarily into the mountains of Tongoli, unable to plant in the high-yielding farmland.

Haider Anur fled the constant barrage of shelling in Al Azarak. His wife and five children had no time to carry anything with them. Now living displaced, partly sheltered by rocky crags in Hajar Bako, a nearby village, he worries for the future.

“Al Azarak is what is feeding Heiban County. It’s a large farming area and good grazing land,” Anur said. “Al Azarak is so important to us and for them [SAF] to be there… some people might die of hunger.”

Mass displacement

Government Antonov warplanes and Sukhoi fighter jets have also hit civilian areas, especially farmland, with 185 bombs dropped in May, according to the South Kordofan-Blue Nile Coordination Unit, an organisation that monitors food security and displacement in the two areas. Agriculturally-rich Heiban County alone had 62 bombs dropped on it in May, including one in Heiban town that killed six children.

“As you can see, they mainly bomb civilian targets, just hitting indiscriminately,” said Mohamed Adam, whose home was destroyed in an Antonov attack on his village in June.

Displaced from their farmland, many civilians find themselves trapped, hiding in caves from March to June: their survival dependent on winning an excruciating waiting game.

Faiza Majar was displaced from Al Azarak, losing last year’s harvest, which she had relied upon to feed her five children, one of them a four-month-old infant.

“I have no idea where we are going to farm, even where we can farm,” Majar told IRIN. “They [SAF] would bomb and shell us. It was so difficult to just get water.”

In 2015, the rains didn’t start until July, roughly six weeks later than usual, causing poor harvests across all five of South Kordofan’s counties. According to the Famine Early Warning System, a US-funded food security monitoring body, cereal production from the 2015-2016 agricultural seasons is estimated to be 35 to 40 percent below the five-year average.

Supply and demand

Meanwhile, restricted access due to conflict areas and reduced supplies of commodities and currency is driving up market prices, further aggravating civilians’ hunger. Besides striking at farming areas, al-Bashir’s forces have also targeted frontline markets that act as lifelines to the Nuba areas, said Kukuande Karlo, field coordinator for the South Kordofan-Blue Nile Coordination Unit. In May, SAF launched ground offensives against two key black markets based in West Kadugli and Delami counties, he said. SAF-aligned militia also reportedly breached the ceasefire by attacking another farming and market area, Lima, on 11 July and 14 July.

Traders in the rebel-controlled capital Kauda say the rebel government attempted to control prices but this only led to them stopping sales since they couldn’t make a profit. The price of staples such as sorghum has doubled and may even triple in the months ahead. Traders are even beginning to stockpile the crop for fearing of running out of supplies altogether.

Deadly crisis

The net result of all these factors is severe hunger during the ‘lean season’ through August this year, and, due to the conflict and ongoing planting restrictions, potentially worse to come in 2017.

For some areas, the conflict has already brought a deadly food crisis. In February, the UN said 242 people, including 24 children, had died of hunger-related illness in eight villages over a six-month period in isolated Kau-Nyaro and Werni counties. The rebel-held region is trapped: a hostile South Sudanese militia in the south and the conflict in the north has left the population, estimated at 65,000, cut off from food supplies.

Those who have managed to leave Kau-Nyaro have walked to the refugee camps in South Sudan in Yida and Ajuong Thok or to government areas in Abu Jubaiha County, said the mayor of Kau-Nyaro, Mohamed Nalteen. Some of those walked all the way with rocks tied to their feet as they lacked shoes to cope with the mixed, undulating terrain.

“People’s reserves of grain are now finished,” the mayor told IRIN. Food rations ran out due to government aerial bombardments from April 2015, making it impossible for people to farm, he added.

Karlo, field coordinator for the South Kordofan-Blue Nile Coordination Unit, said rebel-controlled areas in the northeast like Al Abbassiya and Rashad also remain isolated and people there are facing severe hunger too. Some people in Rashad have resorted to eating poisoned roots, in some cases not boiling the vegetation enough and dying from the consequences, he said.

With food reserves used up and nowhere to farm, Al Azarak's civilians are waiting for help that may not come

The danger now is that such high levels of food insecurity could spread to previously safe areas.

“I’m so worried,” Benjamin Kuku, executive director of the New Sudan Council of Churches, a faith-based humanitarian organisation, told IRIN. “When 242 people die in eight villages alone, then it makes me worried. I don’t know where people are going to get food in the months ahead.”

Aid agencies are reporting that children in Heiban County are already malnourished, but NRRDO’s Abdelrahman said the real worry is next year.

“Host communities have already shared their food with those displaced, so no one will have anything left,” he told IRIN.

Politics of access

The issue of humanitarian access remains central to the seemingly unending peace talks. It was a key point of discussion during March peace talks, the eleventh such initiative, but neither side could agree on the route for such aid to take.

Khartoum insisted on cross-line humanitarian assistance emanating from Sudanese territory while the rebels requested it through adjacent countries.

“The same person dropping bombs on you, burning down your granaries, the same person shooting you – how can he be the same person giving you food?” Abdelrahman said.

The debate is not new: in December, Sudanese and international organisations and personalities wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama asking them to uphold international humanitarian law and ensure assistance is provided to the two conflict areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

“For obvious reasons, the people of the Two Areas [South Kordofan and Blue Nile] do not trust the government of Sudan, and many parts of the population may well refuse to accept assistance that emanates from government-controlled areas,” the letter reads.

Many in rebel-held Kauda believe a more vocal, engaged international community is needed to break the humanitarian deadlock.

“Look at the case of Darfur,” Karlo said. “It is because of the international presence and media coverage that triggered pressure against Khartoum and aid to the region. Why is the international community silent when it comes to us?”

Self-reliant, the Nuba people are not waiting for an international response to solve their harvest challenges. Fearing attacks, more and more people are farming in the less arable but more secure mountainside areas using step irrigation as opposed to farming in the more lush valleys below.

“This is how we survive,” said Hashim Abbas, a farmer in Lewere village. “It may not produce much [food] but at least we know that we can eat tomorrow.”